After adversity, the next big step is here for Big D

Emma Quayle

THE last thing on Duom Dawam's mind was getting fitter, lifting weights and making it to an AFL team one day. Ten years ago, the 15-year-old was a Sudanese refugee, living in Egypt on his way, three years later, to Melbourne's western suburbs.

His memories of those days are vague, but dark. ''It was a scary place,'' he said. ''Looking back, it wasn't very safe. My parents just wanted to move to a safer place.''

Things have felt clearer since then. Dawam was seven when he moved to Australia with his parents, four brothers and sister, and has been a quick learner. A few weeks at English language school was all it took for him to feel comfortable around his new friends, and just three years after starting to kick footballs around the schoolyard, to do what his mates were doing, he has been invited to join the AIS-AFL Academy.

His teammates in the level one squad, which leads into the level two program for older, draft-age boys, will include Darcy Moore, the son of Brownlow medallist Peter; Hugh Goddard, cousin of Brendon; Lachlan Weller, brother of Gold Coast onballer Maverick; and countless other kids who were making their way to weekend Auskick sessions when Dawam's family were fleeing their African home.

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It's the latest opportunity Dawam - who rucked for the World team at the AFL's under-16 carnival last month, pestering coaches Chris Johnson and Xavier Clarke for constant advice - is determined to make the most of. His ruck work caught eyes in Sydney, as well as his competitiveness and desire to know more, more and more about what he could do to get better.

''We finished one game and by the time we got back to the hotel it was about 9.30pm. I was ready to go to bed, but I heard a knock on the door and it was Duom,'' said Johnson, who coaches the AIS squad, too. ''We sat there for about 45 minutes talking about how he could improve for the next game, and he was just hungry for information. We'd tell him something, and as soon as he got back out on the ground he'd be trying it.''

Since he started, falling immediately in love with one part of the game - ''rucking, just rucking'' - the 200-centimetre teenager has learnt more at Manor Lakes College, and started coaching the year 7 basketball team to become a better leader. ''Big D'' has taken part in the same accelerated Victoria University program from which recent draftees Will Hoskin-Elliott and Tom Sheridan graduated and enjoyed playing against some of the country's best under-16 players. ''I went in thinking, 'how's it going to feel?' '' he said. ''It was all right, not too bad. It was a lot of competition.''

Eagle Nic Naitanui is one inspiration and so is Majak Daw, who grew up near Dawam in Wyndham Vale, although he started playing simply because he loved the look of the game, not because he wanted to follow in anyone else's path. It's impossible for him to forget where he has come from; one brother is a doctor in Sudan, another lives in Egypt. He isn't so much imagining what might be possible for him, as working out how to make it happen.

''Great options keep coming to me. It's just kept going and I thought to myself, maybe I should start improving, start getting my skills up, my fitness, my strength, my attitude,'' he said. ''As soon as I started, I wanted to be better at it.''